Introduction
What Rapidweaver is NOT
What Rapidweaver Is
Before we go any further...
Let me just interrupt this program...
So let's go back to Page Types
and then there are Themes!
Let's get it started
Continuing Ed
So where IS my site on my Mac?
Where are my themes kept on my Mac?
Organizing your website related files
Back to the beginning
So what can Rapidweaver actually do?
and on that note!
Greetings!
The purpose of this tutorial is to review a few topics which seem to come up repeatedly on the Rapidweaver users forum, typically from "newbies" who have just started out with the product. This is not meant to be a comprehensive introduction to the Rapidweaver by any means, but is intended as a beginner reference resource on particular questions. So here we go...
The purpose of this tutorial is to review a few topics which seem to come up repeatedly on the Rapidweaver users forum, typically from "newbies" who have just started out with the product. This is not meant to be a comprehensive introduction to the Rapidweaver by any means, but is intended as a beginner reference resource on particular questions. So here we go...
Rapidweaver is not 'WYSIWYG'. No, this
is not "Iweb Plus"
Many new users come to Rapidweaver from Iweb. For one reason or another, they have outgrown Iweb and want to try a more powerful product with different capabilities.
Welcome! Rapidweaver is a great choice....but it is not a What You See is What You Get (WYSIWYG) Web Editor. It is a great step up from IWeb, but it is important for you to understand that the process of creating a site in Rapidweaver is quite different from what you were accustomed to with Iweb.
I am putting this "out there" right up front because I have observed that it is quite common for a "switcher" to grow frustrated very quickly when they launch Rapidweaver, start a new site, add the first page and then suddenly realize that Rapidweaver simply does not work the same way Iweb did. If this has happened to you, the best thing you can do is set aside your expectations for a bit, wipe the slate clean and try to get to know Rapidweaver. Rapidweaver has a learning curve: it is not a difficult one, but you may not find the program entirely intuitive, especially if you are seeing it through an Iweb prism.
Many new users come to Rapidweaver from Iweb. For one reason or another, they have outgrown Iweb and want to try a more powerful product with different capabilities.
Welcome! Rapidweaver is a great choice....but it is not a What You See is What You Get (WYSIWYG) Web Editor. It is a great step up from IWeb, but it is important for you to understand that the process of creating a site in Rapidweaver is quite different from what you were accustomed to with Iweb.
I am putting this "out there" right up front because I have observed that it is quite common for a "switcher" to grow frustrated very quickly when they launch Rapidweaver, start a new site, add the first page and then suddenly realize that Rapidweaver simply does not work the same way Iweb did. If this has happened to you, the best thing you can do is set aside your expectations for a bit, wipe the slate clean and try to get to know Rapidweaver. Rapidweaver has a learning curve: it is not a difficult one, but you may not find the program entirely intuitive, especially if you are seeing it through an Iweb prism.
The process of creating a website with Rapidweaver
is comprised of two distinct yet interwoven
activities:
1) Assembling your content into pages and organizing your pages in the site.
A Page Type might be "Blog" and the content is comprised of all the posts you type in your Blog.....or the Page Type might be "PhotoAlbum" and the content is comprised of the photos you add to the album page, the titles and comments you add, and the settings you establish for displaying those photos.
2) Selecting and modifying your Theme. The theme dictates the look of the site and the structure of elements such as the navigation.
1) Assembling your content into pages and organizing your pages in the site.
A Page Type might be "Blog" and the content is comprised of all the posts you type in your Blog.....or the Page Type might be "PhotoAlbum" and the content is comprised of the photos you add to the album page, the titles and comments you add, and the settings you establish for displaying those photos.
2) Selecting and modifying your Theme. The theme dictates the look of the site and the structure of elements such as the navigation.
...get a look at Rapidweaver in action here:
If you have not watched it yet, here is the Getting Started Screencast from right on the Realmac Rapidweaver Site.
Another super screencast for the beginners is from Screencastsonline. This video actually dates back to 2006 to an early version of Rapidweaver, so the user interface will look different from what you see on your screen, but I still think this is a worthwhile introduction to the Rapidweaver paradigm.
If you have not watched it yet, here is the Getting Started Screencast from right on the Realmac Rapidweaver Site.
Another super screencast for the beginners is from Screencastsonline. This video actually dates back to 2006 to an early version of Rapidweaver, so the user interface will look different from what you see on your screen, but I still think this is a worthwhile introduction to the Rapidweaver paradigm.
...for a word about Rapidweaver's Extendibility.
Realmac Software makes a great product and just by purchasing Rapidweaver, and nothing else, you can create a website with a high level of sophistication. But one of the beauties of Rapidweaver is that it is essentially Open Source: Realmac supports and encourages the development of third party products useable with Rapidweaver and these third party themes, plugs in, utilities and other add-ons make Rapidweaver incredibly powerful and enjoyable to use, extending it's capabilities far beyond what it is without them.
Some of the third party products are free: a great example is Rapidalbum (thanks Scott) , which is an alternative to the photo album page which comes with Rapidweaver, with some more advanced functionality. Many third party themes are also available for free thanks to the generosity of the theme designers.
Then again, some of the third party product are for purchase, almost all of them in the 10-20$ range; they are generally affordable and incredibly worthwhile. The idea of paying for these add-ons sometimes comes as a surprise to new users, who just bought the core product and did not anticipate spending anything more! But step back and compare the base price of Rapidweaver (79.00 ) with the price of Dreamweaver (400.00) and other competing products. With many other Web Design programs, you pay the full price and you get just what the developer puts in the box. With Rapidweaver, you pay $79.00 and you will still have 320.00 left to optionally spend on great plug-ins and additional beautiful themes - of YOUR choice!
Realmac Software makes a great product and just by purchasing Rapidweaver, and nothing else, you can create a website with a high level of sophistication. But one of the beauties of Rapidweaver is that it is essentially Open Source: Realmac supports and encourages the development of third party products useable with Rapidweaver and these third party themes, plugs in, utilities and other add-ons make Rapidweaver incredibly powerful and enjoyable to use, extending it's capabilities far beyond what it is without them.
Some of the third party products are free: a great example is Rapidalbum (thanks Scott) , which is an alternative to the photo album page which comes with Rapidweaver, with some more advanced functionality. Many third party themes are also available for free thanks to the generosity of the theme designers.
Then again, some of the third party product are for purchase, almost all of them in the 10-20$ range; they are generally affordable and incredibly worthwhile. The idea of paying for these add-ons sometimes comes as a surprise to new users, who just bought the core product and did not anticipate spending anything more! But step back and compare the base price of Rapidweaver (79.00 ) with the price of Dreamweaver (400.00) and other competing products. With many other Web Design programs, you pay the full price and you get just what the developer puts in the box. With Rapidweaver, you pay $79.00 and you will still have 320.00 left to optionally spend on great plug-ins and additional beautiful themes - of YOUR choice!
Page Types come in two flavors:
A) the ones which came with Rapidweaver such as
and
B) the third party Plug-In pages such as
The Third Party Page types are numerous and varied. The most comprehensive resource for them is the Add-On's page of the Realmac Site.
Several of the most popular and useful
plug-ins are made by YourHead Software. Blocks,
YourHead's premier product, is "a freeform
layout tool with drag and drop simpliticy".
Introduced in late 2008, a new and extremely
useful Yourhead product, Stacks, has really
expanded the boundaries of Rapidweaver
flexibility by combining the drag and drop
simplicity of Blocks with fluid layout.
Another great YourHead product, my personal
favorite, Accordion, was used to create this
tutorial page.
Another major developer of Page Types is Loghound Software, makers of Sitemap and Pluskit.
A) the ones which came with Rapidweaver such as
- Styled Text
- Blog
- Contact Form
- File Sharing
and
B) the third party Plug-In pages such as
- Blocks
- Stacks
- Accordion
- Sitemap
- Rapidalbum etc..
The Third Party Page types are numerous and varied. The most comprehensive resource for them is the Add-On's page of the Realmac Site.
Another major developer of Page Types is Loghound Software, makers of Sitemap and Pluskit.
The Rapidweaver manual defines themes as “website
page templates that include the basic layout and
architecture of each page”. In short, the theme is
the “look” of the site, dictating both aesthetic
and structural design elements including the
navigation system, size, content and placement of
headers, sidebars, footers, borders, etc.
A theme is comprised of a set of files which includes CSS ( Cascading Style Sheet) documents , HTML documents, images, icons and various other elements which have been selected or authored by the Theme Developer.
A Theme is a tool which you can use repeatedly, applying it to more than one website. A fair analogy would be the templates you might use in Word, Excel or Powerpoint ( or Pages, Numbers and Keynote ) but a theme is not quite the same as a template, because themes are flexible and variable and can be modified by the user - this is a critical point!
For more on this, please have a look through my Themes Tutorial: understanding this material will really contribute to your success with Rapidweaver.
A theme is comprised of a set of files which includes CSS ( Cascading Style Sheet) documents , HTML documents, images, icons and various other elements which have been selected or authored by the Theme Developer.
A Theme is a tool which you can use repeatedly, applying it to more than one website. A fair analogy would be the templates you might use in Word, Excel or Powerpoint ( or Pages, Numbers and Keynote ) but a theme is not quite the same as a template, because themes are flexible and variable and can be modified by the user - this is a critical point!
For more on this, please have a look through my Themes Tutorial: understanding this material will really contribute to your success with Rapidweaver.
My recommendation to you for getting started with
Rapdiweaver is to create a test site and play with
it for a few hours or days or however long you
wish. In fact, I began this way and I still use my
test site all the time to try out new themes, to
work out theme variations, to look at new plugs ins
and generally play with the functionality of RW.
Here is how to begin. (The demo version of Rapidweaver is fine for this purpose but you will be limited to 3 pages),
1 Open Rapidweaver.
2 Choose File>new project.
3 At the lower left corner of your screen, hit the "plus" button to add a page.
4 Select the Page Type "Styled Text".
5 In the main body of the screen you see a large empty white page.
6 This is the Edit Pane.
7 Enter some nonsense text there...a small paragraph is fine.
8 Choose File>Save and save this website right onto your desktop for now, calling it what you wish.
9 Returning to your project, hit PREVIEW.
You will now see your content surrounded by the "Alpha" theme. Alpha is selected simply because it came with Rapidweaver and is the first theme in the theme drawer.
To change the theme, open your Theme Drawer by selecting view>show themes or clicking on the theme drawer icon on the top menu bar in RW4 or at the lower right in RW3.6. Click on a theme to select it, close the drawer and hit Preview again.
To Add more pages to your site, first return to the edit mode and then hit the "plus" button again. Pick another Page type and see what happens!
If you want to make your second page a child or "sub page" of your first page, you can do this easily: in the left hand webpages pane in the Rapidweaver window, simply drag and drop page 2 onto page 1 and you will see an arrow appear next to page 1 indicating it now has a child. If you now hit the preview mode, you will see the effect.
* RW4 Tip * In
Rapidweaver 4 and above, when you view your
site in "preview" mode, you can navigate from
page to page using the site's menu or navbar,
but moving from page to page in preview does
not change the "active page" which you are
actually working on in edit mode. In order
to select a page to edit, modify or augment,
make sure that page is selected in the left
hand "webpages" pane in the Rapidweaver
window. (note - In earlier versions of
Rapidweaver, the navbars and menu buttons in
preview mode are completely inactive so this
confusion does not arise). Click on the image
to enlarge.
A site is built through this process of adding pages and editing content in Edit mode and then previewing to see how the page looks with your theme applied.
and you can take it from there!
Here is how to begin. (The demo version of Rapidweaver is fine for this purpose but you will be limited to 3 pages),
1 Open Rapidweaver.
2 Choose File>new project.
3 At the lower left corner of your screen, hit the "plus" button to add a page.
4 Select the Page Type "Styled Text".
5 In the main body of the screen you see a large empty white page.
6 This is the Edit Pane.
7 Enter some nonsense text there...a small paragraph is fine.
8 Choose File>Save and save this website right onto your desktop for now, calling it what you wish.
9 Returning to your project, hit PREVIEW.
You will now see your content surrounded by the "Alpha" theme. Alpha is selected simply because it came with Rapidweaver and is the first theme in the theme drawer.
To change the theme, open your Theme Drawer by selecting view>show themes or clicking on the theme drawer icon on the top menu bar in RW4 or at the lower right in RW3.6. Click on a theme to select it, close the drawer and hit Preview again.
To Add more pages to your site, first return to the edit mode and then hit the "plus" button again. Pick another Page type and see what happens!
If you want to make your second page a child or "sub page" of your first page, you can do this easily: in the left hand webpages pane in the Rapidweaver window, simply drag and drop page 2 onto page 1 and you will see an arrow appear next to page 1 indicating it now has a child. If you now hit the preview mode, you will see the effect.
A site is built through this process of adding pages and editing content in Edit mode and then previewing to see how the page looks with your theme applied.
and you can take it from there!
Here are my suggestions for further learning at the
"beginner" level:
If you have not viewed them yet, here are a few video quicktours of RW on the Realmac site which provide a brief intro to the product and answer some "frequently asked questions".
The Forums are ground zero for Rapidweaver learning. From beginner to expert, you will find use for the forums at any stage in your Rapidweaving career and the other users will take you step by step through any question, problem or challenge you may encounter. Browse the Tips, Tricks and How-Tos, read the answers to the "Questions", peruse, linger and search, search the old forums and ASK: no question is too simple!
Screencastsonline has some additional great free Rapidweaver tutorials (though please note that none of them are updated to RW4 and some of the more advanced videos are only available if you subscribe).
There are numerous third party websites focused on Rapidweaver. Three of my Favorites are
If you are willing to spend a little to get a lot:
I am a huge fan of Rapidweaverclassroom: this
is a fee based visual learning site but IMHO,
well worth the cost.
Paul Bradforth just came out with his e-book,
Rapidweaver Revealed. I
have to confess I have not yet had time to
read the book but I have benefited from Paul's
advice many times and I hear the book is
excellent.
If you have not viewed them yet, here are a few video quicktours of RW on the Realmac site which provide a brief intro to the product and answer some "frequently asked questions".
The Forums are ground zero for Rapidweaver learning. From beginner to expert, you will find use for the forums at any stage in your Rapidweaving career and the other users will take you step by step through any question, problem or challenge you may encounter. Browse the Tips, Tricks and How-Tos, read the answers to the "Questions", peruse, linger and search, search the old forums and ASK: no question is too simple!
Screencastsonline has some additional great free Rapidweaver tutorials (though please note that none of them are updated to RW4 and some of the more advanced videos are only available if you subscribe).
There are numerous third party websites focused on Rapidweaver. Three of my Favorites are
- My Rapidweaver from Ed Brenner
- Rapidweaver Central from Marten Claridge and
- WebKarnage: Karn switched to Rapidweaver from IWeb and has a tutorial on moving your site from Iweb to RW.
If you are willing to spend a little to get a lot:
When you first save a Rapidweaver project,
Rapidweaver creates a
single project file with
a .RWSW extension. Its icon looks like this
and it's contents do not get opened. This is
not the collection of files which
will ultimately be published to your server -
that comes later! This .RWSW file is a Whole,
just like a Pages document or a Word document
is a Whole...you cannot dissect it.
The numerous site files
(such as index.html) which make up your
functioning website are generated as and when
you export or publish the site. If you choose
to publish your site via the inbuilt FTP
publishing in Rapidweaver, the files are sent
directly to your server and no copies are left
on your hard drive. Conversely, if you Export
your site first and then publish via Transmit
or Cyberduck or the like, the site files do
get placed on your hard drive ( wherever you
choose to put them ) and then of course, you
upload them to your webhost.
When you plan your back-up regimen, remember to back up your mysite.RWSW file AND if you choose, any exported versions of your site on your hard drive!
When you plan your back-up regimen, remember to back up your mysite.RWSW file AND if you choose, any exported versions of your site on your hard drive!
Everything that came with Rapidweaver, including
the 40 or so themes Realmac includes with the
purchase are stored in Applications>Rapidweaver,
in the Contents of the Application, which you
generally do not look at, unless you choose to open
the package which you probably should not.
Any themes, add-ons and styles you purchase or download from a third party will install and should all stay in the home/library/applicationsupport/rapidweaver file. Any Theme Styles you create for your themes will show up in the subfolder Theme Styles. Leave everything where it installs if you want Rapdiweaver to be able to find and use it.
and BACK UP this folder too!!
Any themes, add-ons and styles you purchase or download from a third party will install and should all stay in the home/library/applicationsupport/rapidweaver file. Any Theme Styles you create for your themes will show up in the subfolder Theme Styles. Leave everything where it installs if you want Rapdiweaver to be able to find and use it.
and BACK UP this folder too!!
This question is no different for Rapidweaver than
for any other function or program: workflow and
organization are individual choices.
I personally like to keep EVERYTHING related to a given website together in Finder. So for example, if I have a group of photos in Iphoto and I am going to use them on my website, I optimize them for web use and copy them all into a "Photos" folder right in the project folder for that website. This way I have everything in one place and do not have to look for it here and there later if my website gets corrupted or I am just moving things around or updating. If I type up a page of text content for my website I tend to type it in plain text in TextEdit, save it as a text file, again right in my project folder, and then copy the text (without formatting), right into Rapidweaver when it is nearly perfected....That way if Rapidweaver ever goes Kablooey, I have my site content in another form right on my hard drive.
so I organize myself as follows ( for example )
>Documents>Websites>Real Estate Site with folders for
I personally like to keep EVERYTHING related to a given website together in Finder. So for example, if I have a group of photos in Iphoto and I am going to use them on my website, I optimize them for web use and copy them all into a "Photos" folder right in the project folder for that website. This way I have everything in one place and do not have to look for it here and there later if my website gets corrupted or I am just moving things around or updating. If I type up a page of text content for my website I tend to type it in plain text in TextEdit, save it as a text file, again right in my project folder, and then copy the text (without formatting), right into Rapidweaver when it is nearly perfected....That way if Rapidweaver ever goes Kablooey, I have my site content in another form right on my hard drive.
so I organize myself as follows ( for example )
>Documents>Websites>Real Estate Site with folders for
- Photos
- Other Graphics
- Text Content
- Mywebsite.RWSW
- Exports ( where I dump any Exports to Desktop I do )
- Miscellany
I started out this tutorial by stating the
Rapidweaver does not provide WYSIWYG functionality
and that is true,
BUT you can actually achieve something like WYSIWYG by using a combination of the Blocks plugin from YourHead Software together with the Blocksbox theme from Jonasthemes.
Blocksbox is a “blank slate” theme, with not even the navigation menus in place, but it still offers you the convenience of theme variation functionality. Blockbox requires you to use Blocks for every page.
It is a powerful combination which is perfect if you ( no pun intended ) think outside the box.
Having said that, I really recommend you start with the Rapidweaver basics before you move on to the Blocks/Blockbox paradigm: otherwise, you will be short changing yourself. Blocksbox is great but it is not the right choice for everyone: you really have to want to build your site from the ground up. You can build a fantastic Rapidweaver site without going that route.
BUT you can actually achieve something like WYSIWYG by using a combination of the Blocks plugin from YourHead Software together with the Blocksbox theme from Jonasthemes.
Blocksbox is a “blank slate” theme, with not even the navigation menus in place, but it still offers you the convenience of theme variation functionality. Blockbox requires you to use Blocks for every page.
It is a powerful combination which is perfect if you ( no pun intended ) think outside the box.
Having said that, I really recommend you start with the Rapidweaver basics before you move on to the Blocks/Blockbox paradigm: otherwise, you will be short changing yourself. Blocksbox is great but it is not the right choice for everyone: you really have to want to build your site from the ground up. You can build a fantastic Rapidweaver site without going that route.
To see what Rapidweaver can really do and just for
inspiration, check out these links:
The Site Critique section of the forums - where regular folks like you and me bravely submit their site for review!
The Showcase Section of the Realmac site - the best of the best
The Rapidweaved Showcase
JonasThemes Showcase - Definitely a bit more advanced, but this will give you an idea of where Blockbox can take you.
The Site Critique section of the forums - where regular folks like you and me bravely submit their site for review!
The Showcase Section of the Realmac site - the best of the best
The Rapidweaved Showcase
JonasThemes Showcase - Definitely a bit more advanced, but this will give you an idea of where Blockbox can take you.
I hope you found this tutorial useful!
I really welcome any feedback, critique and input as to how it can be improved.
Feel free to use the contact me link to pop me an email.
I really welcome any feedback, critique and input as to how it can be improved.
Feel free to use the contact me link to pop me an email.